1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a method and installation for the testing of fire extinguishing systems. More in particular, the invention relates to a method and an installation for the testing of open fire extinguishing systems, so called deluge systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
These systems are amongst others used on gas and oil production locations and in the chemical industry. Typically an open fire extinguishing system comprises a number of spray heads, a storage tank for the extinguishing agent and/or a suction conduit to open sea, a pump and/or compressor, a network of conduits that connects the spray heads with the pump and a valve. As soon as a fire is being registered, the valve will be either by hand or automatically opened and water flows from a storage tank and/or from open sea through the network of conduits to substantially all the spray heads being connected to the network of conduits.
The functioning of such systems has to be tested on regular basis. For this, the installations to be protected need to be shut down, the valve need to be opened and the extinguishing agent, normally sea water, flows through the network of conduits and through the spray heads. The used extinguishing agent is being collected and transported to a regeneration installation. During this testing, the installations and systems to be protected often have to be shut down for security reasons.
A disadvantage of such tests is that a load of collected extinguishing agent arises, which need to be recycled and/or purified. Furthermore, the shutdown of the installations to be protected is expensive. In special in the case of offshore installations such tests are for these reasons expensive and complex. Furthermore, during the testing of the extinguishing systems for offshore installations seawater is used. The salt in the seawater can cause unwanted corrosion in the extinguishing system and on the installations to be protected. The corroded conduits can get blocked by these corrosion particles or scaling. This can happen during the testing and during the intervals in between the testing. Often the spray head is the narrowest opening, in which scales of corroded particles can completely block the spray head. By using seawater, unwanted animals such as mussels, crabs, clamshells, stones, sand etc., can enter the network of conduits and reside therein, furthermore cultures of bacteria and/or other living organisms can reside in the network of conduits and block this. It is therefore possible that after a test several spray heads become clogged, while these spray heads were proven open during the testing as such. This can lead to unwanted dangerous situations in the installations.
German Patent Application No. 4323508 discloses a method for the testing of the closeness of spaces. This method does not test any open fire extinguishing installation, and does not give any discriminating result if an open fire extinguishing system functions well or not. U.S. Pat. No. 5,655,579 discloses a method and a device for the testing of the capacity of an extinguishing system. In this method, exiting extinguishing agent is being collected in bags to be recycled. This system is not suited for testing open or deluge fire extinguishing systems.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,971,080 discloses a method of testing a quick response dry pipe sprinkler system. This system is a closed gas containing system, which is tested by a continuous flow of the gas within the system. Any pressure drop in the gas can indicate a leakage of the system. This system is configured with closed nozzles only. It is not an open deluge type of sprinkler system, and testing of the openness of the nozzles is not applicable. Therefore, this system does not relate to, suggests or discloses any testing of open deluge systems.
Accordingly, the object of the invention is to provide a method and installation that does not show or at least partially diminishes the herein above mentioned disadvantages, while the advantages thereof are at least partially remain. Furthermore, is an object of the invention to provide a method and installation, which is less expensive, less complex in use and less harmful for the installations and devices to be protected.